Monday, March 23, 2009

Langer's Pastrami

This is not exactly a charming neighborhood, but I was committed to tasting what has been touted as the best pastrami in the country during my recent trip to LA. All, of course as a prelude to making my own pastrami. My pals Andrew and Damon facilitated the pilgrimage.

The interior, as you can see is vintage 1975. The real thing, not touted up or reinvented. The waitstaff were original (see upper left), the banquettes, plastic coated menu, and even the nice Jewish man who took this picture for us. He self identified as such, even though I suspected he was paid to sit there to lend authenticity. We tried the brisket, corned beef w/ sauerkraut and the famed pastrami. Fries came with, and I had a cream soda.

Here is the sandwich, drawn and quartered. The coleslaw, I must admit, threw me a bit, and I think it would have been better without it. The pickles were a little younger and tamer than I like. And the whole maybe a little too soft and yeilding.

Here I am scrutinizing he contents. I have to admit, on it's own it is quite possibly the best pastrami in the country. Maybe the universe. But I saw no Martians.

Ok, it was indeed pretty damned amazing. But here is what I intend to do differently. I'm not sure if the meat was smoked or not, but I think it should be. This was not terribly different from the corned beef, which as a sandwich was actually superior. I am a toast freak, and I love sauerkraut. So that's what make that sandwich work. But if you took pastrami, on toasted rye, a little more sour and not so soft, and left off the cole slaw, added mustard instead. Nothing else. Then I think it could rank up there among the celestial blessed sandwiches. Samachisa bootifa, samachisa fine, I like samachis, I eat them all the time. I eat them for my dinner.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in wow gold every human being's heart the lure of wonder,the unfailing childlike appetite for what's next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of Runescape Gold your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the rs gold Infinite, so long as you are young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of Runescape Gold pessimism, then you are grown rs gold old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is Runescape Money hope you may die young at 80.

Food A Cultural Culinary History

About Me

Food Historian at the University of the Pacific. Director of Food Studies in San Francisco.
Author of Eating Right in the Renaissance, Food in Early Modern Europe, Cooking in Europe 1250-1650, The Banquet, Beans (2008 IACP Jane Grigson Award) and Pancake. A cookbook with Rosanna Nafziger THE LOST ART OF REAL COOKING.
Coeditor of The Lord's Supper with Trudy Eden and Editor of A Cultural History of Food: The Renaissance.
Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia (4 vols.) Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican and Chinese recently won the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards Best Foreign Cuisine book in the World. The Routledge International Handbook to Food Studies is in print.
A sequel to the cookbook - entitled THE LOST ARTS OF HEARTH AND HOME.
Latest Books: Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food from Oregon State U Press, a little book on Nuts from Reaktion and The Food History Reader from Bloomsbury. The Most Excellent Book of Cookery (translation of a 16th c. French Cookbook with Tim Tomasik) from Prospect Books. Not to mention THE BEAST: The Food Issues Encyclopedia for Sage. Still in the works.